Ashes and Ledgers
Episode ------42
The rain had eased by dawn, but Kolkata still felt drenched in shadow.
Aria's fingers clutched the damp ledger so tightly the leather bit into her palms. Every page inside could save Raian — or doom them all if it fell into the wrong hands.
They didn't dare return to the apartment above the tea shop. Malik's reach stretched deeper than streets or walls.
Instead, they ducked into an abandoned textile mill on the outskirts — a labyrinth of broken looms and rotting canvas. Rats scattered as they stepped through.
---
Ayan checked every door, blade in hand. Lina kept watch by a cracked window, rain dripping from her shawl.
Aria sank to the cold floor, exhaustion pressing into her bones. "We need to get these ledgers to a lawyer," she whispered.
Ayan turned, eyes shadowed by old guilt. "And which lawyer in this city will take on Malik?"
"There has to be someone," she insisted, voice shaking.
---
A clang echoed from deeper in the mill — metal hitting stone.
All three froze.
Breaths shallow, hearts hammering in the damp air.
A rat scurried past. Silence returned.
---
Lina exhaled. "We can't stay here long," she murmured. "They'll find us."
"And do what?" Aria whispered. "Burn this?" She held up the ledger, pages trembling.
Ayan's jaw clenched. "Yes. And kill us to bury the truth."
---
Elsewhere, deep behind iron bars:
Raian lay on the cot, chains biting wrists raw.
He had slept barely an hour in days. Every time his eyes closed, ghosts stalked the dark:
Faces of men he had cut down. Eyes wide, frozen in death.
Rajveer — mouth twisted in surprise as blood bloomed across his chest.
And older faces, long buried under guilt: a boy in an alley, a rival enforcer gasping on broken glass.
---
One ghost stood apart:
Aria, tear‑stained, reaching for him through the bars.
His chest clenched so tight he could barely draw breath.
---
"Regret," a voice rasped in the dark.
Raian opened his eyes. Across the cell, in shadows barely lit by a dying bulb, an old man sat shackled to the wall — his face lined and eyes dark as wet stone.
"You look like a man drowning in it," the old man murmured.
---
Raian turned away. "Leave me."
"Even murderers pray for dawn," the old man whispered. "But dawn never comes for men like us."
Raian's voice cracked. "Maybe we don't deserve it."
---
The old man's eyes gleamed in the dark. "Deserve? No. But sometimes dawn rises anyway — for those willing to crawl toward it, even bleeding."
Raian's fingers curled tighter around cold chain.
---
Back in the mill:
Ayan spread a torn cloth on the ground. "We list what we know," he muttered. "Then decide where to run."
Aria set the ledger on the cloth, flipping through pages inked in rushed, messy script. "These prove Rajveer's debts, payoffs — and orders to remove 'obstacles.' One of them… is Raian."
---
Lina leaned in, breath catching. "So Rajveer ordered the hit on his own man?"
"And Raian killed him to stop it," Aria whispered. "If we can show this, it's proof he acted in defense."
Ayan nodded slowly. "We need copies. Hide them in different places."
---
They worked by candlelight — rain leaking through the roof, wind rattling rusted doors.
Every name they wrote down felt like adding weight to a noose.
---
Night fell again.
Aria sat apart, ledger pressed to her chest. Guilt gnawed at her ribs:
If I hadn't saved him that night… would he be free now?
Lina knelt beside her. "Hey."
Aria lifted wet eyes. "I keep wondering… if I made it worse."
---
Lina shook her head. "You gave him something he never had: a reason to want to be better."
Aria swallowed hard. "Then why does hope feel so heavy?"
"Because it matters," Lina whispered. "And that makes it terrifying."
---
Outside, gravel shifted.
Ayan's head snapped up. "Stay here," he rasped, knife sliding from his belt.
He slipped toward the door, every step measured, silent.
---
Figures moved beyond the rusted gate.
Rain‑soaked coats. Guns glinting in flickers of lightning.
Malik's men.
---
Ayan's breath caught. Too late to run.
He turned back, whisper‑harsh: "Hide the ledger. Now."
Aria stuffed it under rotting canvas as Lina scattered loose pages under rusted machinery.
The gate creaked open. Shadows spilled in.
---
Back in the cell:
Raian's heartbeat slowed — memory sharpening into something almost like prayer.
Hold on, he breathed silently. Just hold on.
Chains rattled as he stood, bruised hands pressed to cold bars.
Outside, thunder rolled — as if the city itself held its breath.
---
In the mill:
Malik's men stepped inside, flashlights sweeping broken stone.
"Spread out," one ordered. "The doctor and the traitor's whore are here."
Aria's pulse roared; Lina's breath hitched.
---
A hand brushed against rusted canvas — inches from the ledger.
Another step, and they'd find it.
Ayan's voice cut through the shadows, low and cold: "Looking for someone?"
---
The first man turned. "You again," he sneered.
"I told you," Ayan rasped, stepping closer, blade catching the candlelight, "he isn't dead yet. And neither are we."
---
The second man leveled his gun. "Step aside."
Ayan's smirk was tired, haunted, but real. "No."
---
Lightning split the sky.
For a breath, no one moved.
Then Lina's voice, shaking but sharp: "You think he'd want this? Killing unarmed women?"
The man hesitated. His partner snarled, gun rising again.
---
In that heartbeat, Aria moved.
A rusted pipe from the ground — swung wild, desperate.
The blow cracked against the man's knee. He screamed, gun clattering onto wet stone.
Ayan lunged, knife flashing.
---
The first man cursed, grabbing Aria's hair — but Lina slammed into him, knocking them both against the wall.
---
Pain. Rain. Breathless chaos.
Then: silence, broken only by ragged breathing and the drip of rain.
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Ayan's chest heaved. "We need to move. Now."
Aria's hands trembled around the pipe. "Where?"
"Anywhere they aren't," Lina whispered.
---
Aria grabbed the ledger from under the canvas, clutching it to her chest.
Ayan nodded, voice low, rough: "Then let's run."
---
Far across the city:
Raian sank onto cold concrete, breath ragged.
But in the dark, memory burned brighter than fear:
Aria's voice, fierce and trembling: "Then don't give up on yourself."
---
Teaser for Episode 43:
Fleeing through Kolkata's storm‑washed streets, Aria, Lina & Ayan must decide who to trust. In the prison, Raian faces the darkest night of his life… and a choice between the man he was and the man he wants to be.